She detested celebrations, official receptions and such, but parties, the ones that came in with friends and music, dancing and chatting and goofing around and having fun... Parties she adored.
She could not remember to ever have had a better one. There had only been the seven of them, Rev Bem and Rhade's wife. They had been in Hydroponics, there had been lampoons in the trees and as much food and drinks as they could wish for, they laughed and danced and got lost in reminiscences and dreamed together of their futures – for once no longer gloomy, scary and dark, but bright and wide, wide open in front of them all.
She was drunk on happiness, on their victory, on the feelings of warmth, friendship and success that seemed to float around them, and so she had stuck to water during the entire evening. After their time on Seefra clean, pure water was anyway the most wonderful taste she could imagine. It had gotten late – and she had together with Rev Bem been the last one to leave, after receiving Andromeda's reassurance that no, she needed no help and that the bots could handle the cleaning up by themselves.
But she couldn't sleep, she didn't want this night to end, didn't want to just call it a day and wake up the next morning to... another world, one without the Abyss, without the Magog, one with routines, schedules, work, vacations, friends, political intrigues, duties, rights, responsibilities, certainties and freedom. As glad as she was to finally have made it to such a world, she didn't know anything about it, had never experienced such a world from within. She had no doubts she'd fit in, she had no doubts it would be good, but still: she had no idea how she would find her way – and did not want to think about it for now. For now all she wanted was to simply bask in the warm, cozy feeling of success for just a little while longer.
Leaning on the rail in front of the huge window of the Observation Deck, Beka Valentine gazed out to the stars.
She had left the doors open and so she heard him coming for quite a while before he reached the Obs Deck. She didn't turn around, didn't really have to, having for years known the rhythm of the swift, determined stride by heart. It didn't even surprise her that he was coming to her; she had also known for years that he had ever since they came aboard adopted the habit of inquiring on their all whereabouts before going to sleep himself. When one of them was not where he supposed them to be found at that hour, doing exactly what he expected them to do, more often than not he postponed his rest and came to check.
That – victory or not – Dylan Hunt was not breaking the habit tonight didn't really come as a surprise to her. But then surprise settled in on her nonetheless.
She had expected him to hesitate before finding an opening he thought adequate. He always hesitated around her at first, had done so for the last two years at least. It had been rather long since the last time when he had felt truly comfortable around her. They had re-forged their friendship, knotted again the ties that bound them together, but the easy-going, natural companionship, that had been theirs before Tyr had left the ship, was still missing somehow and it wasn't really because of Beka's lack of trying. As far as she could tell, it had just been too long that she had seemed to Dylan unpredictable, unreadable, incomprehensible in a lot of her reactions. And so the first moments that they spent together were always a bit awkward, strained, with Dylan cautiously checking her mood as if he were moving forward through a mine field, while Beka was mostly trying to just relax, lean back and give him the space and time he needed to reassure himself that nothing would explode into his face.
And so she had expected him to stall his stride at the doors, to approach her in a diplomatic manner, to slowly come nearer, clear his throat and start a casual conversation or simply join her in silence. But he didn't do any of his usual delaying tactics, and that startled her. Yet he was too quick, and she never got the chance to turn around and face him. Before she could force her mind to come out of its relaxed, pleasantly lazy mode of complete well-being and react to the fact that he didn't stop or wait or hesitate, he had already reached her.
To her immense amazement, she felt his hands reaching out for her shoulders and gently pulling her away from the rail, up and towards him, until her back was leaning against him. His right arm reached across her chest, his hand coming to rest on her left shoulder, while his left arm encircled her waist, his head resting lightly against her hair. It was in no way aggressive or restricting, but it was unmistakingly possessive, a strangely tight and at the same time loose, not constraining embrace, the laxness of his grip indicating clearly that he'd step back and let her out of it the second she would try to break free.
She didn't. For a moment she stiffened up a bit, taken by surprise, but she relaxed almost immediately into his arms and leant heavily back against him. Amazing as it was, it just felt good and warm and like exactly the right thing to do.
They stood there in silence, both watching the stars. Occasionally it occurred to Beka that it was a bit awkward to merely stand there, locked in Dylan's embrace, but she didn't care, she was just too comfortable the way she was. At long last however, she infinitesimally craned her head to the side and up, trying to peer into his face. Tiny as it had been, Dylan perceived the movement. Leaning a bit to the right, but not letting go of her, he inclined his head towards his shoulder so he could look at her. Their eyes met and he smiled.
"Couldn't sleep?" His voice sounded a bit rough, a little deeper than usual, the way it always did when he was tired, pent-up or simply just uncertain.
Smiling back at him, Beka shook her head.
"I could, if I would only go to bed. I'm so tired, I think I'd fall asleep in a matter of seconds."
"So then why don't you?"
"Can't," she joked, "you're keeping me up." But as she felt the hug growing slack, her hands reached up to his right arm to keep it in place. "No, don't let go!" she hastily urged him.
The embrace tightened up and she nestled back in, her gaze returning to the stars outside. For a brief moment he kept staring at her, then placed a feather-light kiss on the top of her head.
"I never will," he murmured before going back himself to observing the universe.
How strange, thought Beka, how strange to be here with him like that, in this room of all places!
The Obs Deck was the one spot onboard the Andromeda Ascendant that had probably seen the most fights between the two of them. Oh, there had been so many they had fought that Beka seriously doubted that there was as much as one single place left on the Eureka Maru or on the Andromeda that had not heard angry words, hurtful remarks and biting accusations. But whenever things went seriously south, matters got really bad between them, they seemed to always end up on Obs Deck, pacing up and down, ranting, shouting at each other.
There was probably not one particle in the entire hall that couldn't tell a story of some old storm thundering on between them until sometimes there seemed to be not one bit of their mutual respect and understanding for each other left to build up on. A wrong impression. There always was something left between them, something that reached deeper, that proved stronger than the hurt, the mistrust and the fury.
By now she knew all his tricks and schemes, just as he knew all her ploys and charms. Whenever they had tried to break free from each other, they had failed miserably, keeping each other bound from one trap to another, even though it occasionally seemed that they were losing the other. Yes, there had been others crossing their ways, every now and then deterring them from the path that was inevitably leading them to each other. But all in all it had turned out in the end that they both had a talent for knowing how to grow old without growing bitter, how to make their way individually, but not separately.
Time and fate had been following them closely, tormenting, testing, mocking and hurting them. And yet they had proven that they could come through, that they would always come through, overcoming no matter what the universe was set on throwing at them. They had grown accustomed to the struggles – and to struggling together. With every day that they spent with each other, Beka felt less and less like running, Dylan felt less and less like being torn apart, they were less and less protecting their frailties from each other. They left less to chance, were more suspicious of the way things were and paying more attention to ensure that even in their darkest hours the war they fought with each other maintained some tenderness .
So many times that he had distanced himself from her, so many times that she had threatened to leave for good. And now here they were, after the Abyss, after Seefra, after... Reaching within herself, Beka was surprised to find out that she knew, deep down and with an absolute certainty, that she finally had lost her hunger for independence. Just as she knew that Dylan had lost his appetite for conquests.
Oh yes, there had been storms, there would be more ahead. A love stubbornly growing for five years was strong, and mad, and powerful. And yet there was one big challenge left: to prove that they dared and could live in and at peace – around them and with each other. The biggest one of all.
"Dylan?"
"Hmm?"
"Don't run scared now, but..."
"But?"
Silence.
"Beka?"
"What?"
"I'm not running. Scared or otherwise."
"No, you're not."
"So who is? Are you?"
"No. No, I'm through with running. I love you, Dylan."
A deep breath and a barely suppressed sigh behind her. The tightening of arms around her. And then lips searching, probing, tasting the skin below her ear. And a soft, hot blowing whisper.
"Beka! I love you, I think that I have loved you for so long a time I don't even know exactly when it started. And I will go on loving you till the end of times:"
"That is a huge promise."
"No, it's not. It's a fact."
"I love you. That's a fact, too."
She turned around, not leaving the circle of his arms. Her head turned up to his face, her lips found his mouth that was softer, warmer and even better tasting than she remembered. Which was really surprising, since she did remember it very soft and warm and tasting deliciously. It's true, after all, that appetite grows with eating, she thought randomly.
"We've been fools..." she murmured against his lips. "But I for one am through with that."
"Is that a promise?" he asked, a longing smile in his voice.
"That's a promise," Beka confirmed strongly.
"Good," he breathed in her hair. "Because I've decided that I too am through with running, being stupid and waiting."
She placed her hands flat against his chest, pushing him away and looking at his face with an almost interogatory expression.
"This all sounds... too easy somewhat..." she finally told him. "Not as if you're acting on impulse..."
"That's because I'm not," Dylan informed her quietly. "I've planned all this for... for so long. It's just that over the years I started to lose faith that we'll ever make it..."
"Over the years?" Her eyes widened questioning. "How long has this been building up?"
"Building up? I don't know," he confessed. "I just know that while I was waiting for you to wake up after that first flash abuse, I realised that should you lose your fight against it, I'd give up too on... on..."
"On what?"
Dylan shrugged helplessly.
"No idea, really. On everything, I guess..."
Beka felt moisture welling up in her eyes.
"My God, why didn't you say so in the first place? That was ages ago! Dylan, how could you live this way for all those years?"
"I couldn't. I didn't. But I functioned, didn't I? I mean, it worked out in the end, right? But for the fact that I had time and again to ask them all to stick to me just because I had to treat you all alike and couldn't bring myself to orderYOU into battle, order YOU to take the risks, it worked out, didn't it?" His hands clasped her shoulders almost painfully, while he tried to focus on different spots of her face, his gaze wandering off from the high cheekbones to the strong, straight, a bit snobbish nose and further down to that amazingly full lips, only to end up drowning yet again in the smokiness of those blue-grey eyes he couldn't do without.
She swallowed and then reached up to him, taking his face into her hands, her heart almost missing a beat as she watched him close his eyes and lean into her touch, as if he had been craving for something like this for too long and was unable to restrain himself anymore. But then his eyes opened. No, Beka noticed, not un-able... Un-willing. She smiled, but then decided to take it one step further, challenge him some more.
"What about... you know, the Commonwealth, the High Guard?"
He shook his head doubtfully.
"I... I don't know, Beka. I think that we've both proven beyond the call of duty that we can serve together, no matter how things stand between us. But if they insist on their regulations..." He shrugged and drew her nearer. Placing her hands against his chest Beka grinned at him broadly.
"Oh well, what the heck!" she exclaimed, sounding casually, although her eyes were searching his a bit uncertain. "I've always been a rebel!"
"I know," he told her quietly. "But I'm not. Not deep down, not really. If they don't understand, I will not fight them, just resign my commission and walk away. Could you... could you live with that?"
"With that... and you?" Beka asked him directly, but staring squarely straight ahead at her hands.
"Of course with me. I... I thought that we somehow already established even before the battle that from now on you and me will always ride together..." Dylan said pointedly, himself now taking her face into his hands and gently turning it up, so he could look into her eyes. "Beka, I mean every single word I told you. But outside the High Guard... I'm not even sure I know how to earn a living," he told her earnestly.
She could not suppress a chuckle.
"I'm sure Uncle Sid could find you an occupation. And if not, I always wanted to keep myself my very own, private hero..."
"That's not funny," he protested.
"Yes, it is," she contradicted him. "You're not seriously implying that once out of the military you'd be a useless relic!"
"But Sid... I'm sure you're joking."
"Yes, I am."
Pulling his head back down to her she restarted the kissing. Dylan complied, but only a moment later he withdrew again.
"One more thing..."
"What now?" Beka inquired a bit annoyed.
"Over the past years I..." he hesitated, his cheekbones coloring lightly. "I might have... I mean, I somehow was... I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm sorry, but it can't be undone that... that you're not exactly..." he peered into her face, hoping she might help him on this one, but she didn't; and so he swallowed and concluded harshly, looking down past her: "...that you're not exactly the first woman in my life."
For an instant Beka stood there in silence, but then she cupped his chin firmly with her hand and made him look at her.
"I couldn't help noticing," she told him gently, "but you know, much rather than the first I'd prefer to be the last woman in your life."
He smiled relieved and grateful and his head came closer. She closed her eyes again in anticipation, but instead of a kiss she felt another small sigh blowing over her lips. She reopened her eyes and found him very close, sternly staring at her.
"What?" Beka inquired.
"While we're at it... This legion of pretty, mostly Nietzschean bad boys..."
"Hardly a legion," she objected quickly.
"Felt like a legion," Dylan insisted stubbornly.
"Not even a cohort," Beka slightly pouted.
"A legion, a cohort...!" he exclaimed somewhat exasperated. "In any case too many..."
Leaning her head against him, Beka whispered something.
"I didn't quite catch that..." Dylan informed her in a low voice.
"I said," she uttered louder into his chest, "that I was merely biding my time until I could get hold of the baddest pretty boy of them all."
"Ah, okay, that's settled then," he laughed at her with a smirk. She lifted her head.
"Are we done now?"
"We're done here," he agreed, lifting her into his arms and turning speedily towards the doors. Surprised, she drew her head back and looked at him ironically.
"Are you in a rush? Under some kind of pressure?"
"You bet," Dylan laughed back at her. "So," he continued between a shower of small kisses that he was planting all over her face while walking swiftly through the deserted corridors and towards their own quarters, "your place, mine or the Maru? And: about those kids..."
"What kids?"
"The ones you took great care to inform me that you didn't want..."
Encircling his neck with her arms and leaning into him, she sighed:
"By the Divine! You really are in a rush..."
